FreeStyle
by ki-ku-maru BEAM
Summary: A collection of drabbles (where I will post all my short drabbles). Ratings depend on the indiv drabble as do pairings. Main pairing throughout: Harurin.
1. Number 1: Clouds

Rin was sprawled out on the grass. Haruka sat on a small portable chair with his paints. The two of them had found this clearing in their town when they were children. So far, they'd kept it a secret place for the two of them.

Considering the millions and millions of people in Japan, you would think that the collection of islands would have no empty spaces. You would think there would be nowhere that was left to be discovered.

_You would think._

And yet, people huddle together. They build cities. And most of the millions stay together, all on top of each other, in these compact cities.

This left the Japanese countryside rather untouched.

Sure, they knew, before them, this was probably someone else's, and in the future, after they were long gone, this would again be someone else's.

But, right now, it was _theirs_.

Rin's eyes were on the clouds. They were moving quickly, racing overheard. Some days, like this one, clouds burst past him. They moved as though they seemed to think they were late.

Other times, they stood still, sitting above him, casting shadows on top of him.

On either side of him were mountains. Occasionally, he'd look to one side or the other to admire them.

Right now though, he watched the clouds.

He took in a deep breath.

Here, the air was clean. It tasted different than it did in the city, different even than it did in their small town. It was crisper somehow.

In the distance, if he listened closely, he could hear the sound of a small river. He and Haruka frequently fished there. They had a trip planned for next week.

For someone who was always in a rush, someone who always had places to go, Rin felt strangely lethargic here. Here, he could feel at peace. Time stopped. All his other concerns faded away.

He let out his long breath.

Really, this place gave him the utmost sense of awe. Haruka knew Rin loved it here, and Rin had indicated this several times to Haruka. Yet, Rin still asked, "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in the whole world?"

Haruka, who had been engulfed in his art, was suddenly pulled into conversation. Haruka looked down at Rin. His eyes narrowed on Rin and he dropped his paintbrush into the water.

Haruka never needed many words to make his point. He always managed to say the most powerful things using the least words possible.

One word.

One word was all it took.

"_You._"


	2. Number 2: Treasure

A/N: This one has some pretty deep darkness in it, but, it has something of a happy ending.

part of this story is based on true facts. I got completely smashed on friday night, and i was talking about my childhood and I started to talk about how when I lived in front of a cemetery my neighbor and I found treasure in it. People wanted to know more details, but the way I laid it out (because smashed) sounded super rapey. I've never thought about it that way, but I've been thinking about how it's kind of a sketchy story ever since and I decided to make it into a somewhat depressing rinharu fic.

Warnings: drug use, past implied childhood rape, depressing shit, so on

XXX

Rin was fucking stoned. This always happened when he hung out with Seijuro. The guy smoked like a fucking forest fire. Rin figured that he deserved the break though. He'd had a rather shitty week at work, and he yearned to cut loose.

And cut loose, he did. The high hit him hard, and he had definitely smoked more than he had intended, but he was feeling good.

"Nitori'll be here soon and then, we'll head out." 

"Head out?" Rin asked. This was news. He figured they would just be staying in Seijuro's house in the woods smoking and talking like usual.

Seijuro laughed, "Guess we forgot to tell you. We're going to a party at Stanford."

Rin's eyes widened. Stanford was like a 20 minute drive from where they were, "We are?"

"Yeah, it's some girl I went to high school's graduation party from law school, we'll leave whenever Nitori gets here," he passed the bong to Rin.

Rin took another hit. Usually two or three was his max, but somehow, he and Sei had managed to go through two bowls. He was getting fucking blazed.

Nitori came soon after their second. Nitori was almost always late.

"Glad you could join us," Rin laughed mostly from the high.

"I see you guys got started without me," Nitori pulled his own bong out of his backpack. Rin didn't have a bong, but both Nitori and Seijuro did. The two of them smoked together _a lot_. It kind of made Rin uncomfortable on a certain level, but Rin wasn't one to judge.

After all, of the three of them, he was sure to be the most stoned tonight.

"We should actually get going," Seijuro looked at the clock above his fireplace.

Nitori sighed, "Let me do a shot at least then. You're driving, right Sei?"

"Yeah," usually Nitori was their designated driver, but since it was Seijuro's friend, he was planning on driving.

Nitori packed the bowl deftly and Rin watched his hands. Rin liked Nitori's hands. He liked the way his hands connected to his arms and those connected to his sexy body and, _fuck_, Nitori was hot.

Rin had developed something of a crush on the younger guy over the years. He hadn't been attracted to him when they first met, but there was something exhaustingly cute about the guy.

The relationship between the three of them was that they had all gone to college together. Rin and Seijuro were in the same year of college, which they had graduated a few years ago. Nitori was a year behind them both, and had at one point lived with the two of them. At one point, all three of them had lived together.

Rin loved the way the Nitori took a drag. Really, there was something undeniably sexy about it. Most people inhaled the smoke quietly, but Nitori made this little noise as it went inside his mouth. He held it for a second, allowing it to sink into his lungs, before finally letting it escape.

He took several more hits the same way, catching up to Rin and Seijuro. Both Rin and Seijuro eyed the silver haired man. He finished the bowl and put down his bong, "Well, let's go over and see your friend graduate, then we'll come back?"

Rin hadn't been feeling particularly high until this point. He knew he was, but now his heart was starting to be super fast and his arms were starting to feel weak. He'd smoked way too much, he realized.

He followed the other men into the car. Nitori and Seijuro sat in the front, leaving Rin in the back to sit in silence. The two of them talked about all kinds of things.

The drive to Stanford was only 20 minutes, but somehow to Rin, it felt like it took them two hours to get there. Seijuro was a rather slow driver, but it seemed to take so damn long.

They talked about all kinds of different things, there was a whole long conversation about Miley Cyrus, which amused the ever living fuck out of Rin, but he had a hard time focusing on it. There was also a conversation about dogs. Like entirely about breeds and mixes and things. Rin didn't really know what was going on. He just kept looking out the window and seeing the trees go by.

Somehow, the conversation moved to cemeteries. Seijuro was talking about how when he went to New England there were a whole bunch of super old ones, all with bodies over 400 years old. Nitori seemed a bit scared, but he also really enjoyed having his limits pushed by both Rin and Seijuro. The two of them tended to tease him and he loved it.

Rin half-listened to the conversation, he was thinking about his childhood in New England. He grew up in a small town in Massachusetts. Most of the time, his friends couldn't care less about his past, nor could they understand it. Pretty much everywhere in the world was different than where Rin had grown up. He'd come out here to escape all of that any way. Still, this was the moment that the drugs took over, Rin found himself opening up, "Yeah, they're all pretty damn old. Even the cemeteries where they bury fresh bodies have pretty old bodies in them."

"See," Seijuro said to Nitori.

"I lived in front of a cemetery when I lived back there."

This got their attention, "Did you like ever go in it?" Nitori asked. A little bit afraid of the answer.

It was a pitch dark and they were driving in the woods after all.

"Yeah. All the time. It was like having a giant backyard. We always explored it," Rin didn't really focus on the conversation. The 'we' referred to him and his childhood best friend and next door neighbor, a guy who he hadn't seen since he was in high school. Not that it mattered, Rin hadn't talked to him since long before then. They had grown apart at some point in elementary school. Rin kept tabs on him though, the way you always keep tabs on the people you grow up with. Supposedly, the guy was a swim coach for UC Berkeley while taking law classes and was living only like 60 miles away from Rin.

"Ever find anything?" Seijuro asked. He wasn't expecting much of an answer.

"Yeah, we found treasure once."

"Treasure?"

"Yeah," Rin went on slowly, forming words was becoming difficult and his mind was going in a million directions, "there was this guy cutting grass."

"What?" Seijuro asked.

"You know, a guy cutting grass."

"He means in the cemetery, I think, like a gardener," Nitori tried to help.

"Yeah, him and his crew," it must have been the weed, Rin decided, that was making this story so hard for them to understand. It was a simple story, "Anyway, this guy came up to me and my neighbor. He pulled me aside and he told me that he'd help me find treasure and that there was treasure in the cemetery, my neighbor didn't think we should talk to him, but I did. I don't know why, but I just like followed him to this place with a tree..." Rin paused, realizing that sounded wrong somehow. Something about this whole story sounded really wrong. He hadn't thought about it in a really long time, and something about it all felt really wrong, "yeah, that makes it sound kind of weird I guess. But, that's what happened."

Rin paused for a second and Seijuro and Nitori looked at each other strangely. _It sounded really fucked up somehow._

"So, he like took me down to this area, and there was a box and inside it there was a bunch of stolen jewelry," Rin paused again.

Was that what happened? Why did it feel like he had forgotten something important? So much of his childhood was a blur, but something about retelling this story made him feel sick. Had he ever told anyone this story? Gou wasn't there...she was off at a friend's house. Why didn't they end up giving her the jewelry?

"Wow, like gold and shit?" Seijuro asked, his interest repiqued.

"Nah, like the stuff you'd find in a Claire's," Rin answered, "it was just a stolen box from them. They had a store near my house too. It was some kind of shipment, no big deal. Had earrings, necklaces, shit like that inside."

They sat in silence for awhile.

"Wow you guys," it was the drugs, but Rin kept talking, "this story sounds seriously a lot more fucked up than it was, I promise. I don't think I told it right. I'm really fucking high."

"Dude. You know that is the plot to True Detective?" Nitori asked, "Like if it were a southern town, that would literally be like the plot to True Detective."

"Is it?" Rin hadn't finished the story.

They changed topics and everyone else forgot about it.

But, something about that story was bothering Rin. Why couldn't he remember clearly what had happened that day?

XXX

The following day, Rin woke up on Seijuro's couch feeling the after affects of the weed. For some reason, it took him forever to get over smoking weed whenever he did it. Alcohol wasn't that way for him.

He looked over at the other side of the living room, at Seijuro's other couch. It was empty. Nitori had already left, not that it mattered, they'd see each other again soon.

He thanked Seijuro for letting him stay over, then he got into his car.

Rin sat there for a minute, replaying the events of the evening in his head.

He looked at Haruka's facebook page. He found Haruka's address on it.

Somehow, he couldn't stop himself. He punched in the address in Berkeley into his GPS. He'd be able to get there in like 80 minutes. So, Haruka was further than 60 miles away from him. Not that it mattered, Rin wanted to go there.

Rin wanted to see him. He had to talk to Haruka about what had happened that day. He had to know if Haruka had seen something that could help him remember.

XXX

Haruka heard his doorbell ring. _That's strange, _he thought. There was no one that he expected to come and visit him, and the mailmen in Berkeley never had rung the bell before. He figured it must be some kind of substitute.

He stayed seated on his couch.

The bell rang again.

This caused Haruka to get up. He peeked through the hole in his door to see who it was on his porch.

To his surprise, it was his neighbor from their small town in Massachusetts. Matsuoka Rin. Haruka knew him well, and he'd kept tabs on him over the years. Rin had ultimately ended up going to Stanford, which Haruka knew his parents had paid for him to get into. Haruka had gone to Berkeley, and now, Rin was working for some small company, while Haruka was finishing up his law degree. He had high hopes to become a district attorney.

Haruka opened his door, "Uh hi."

Rin bit his lip. He had had the courage to come all the way up here, but somehow when he was on the drive it never occurred to him that he would actually reach Haruka's apartment. It seemed like he would just drive forever. Now that he was here, he had no idea what to say to Haruka.

"I don't think you remember me," Rin started, feeling extremely stupid.

Haruka lowered his eyes, "I know who you are, Rin."

"Oh," Rin answered. He put his hand behind his head and laughed awkwardly, "I-I didn't mean to bother you, I just… I wanted to ask you some questions about something."

"Mm, come in," Haruka had no reason to not allow Rin into his place. It was weird to be talking to him after so many years, but there was nothing that could be done about that.

Rin followed him in. Haruka's place was pretty spacious. It was larger than it had looked from the outside. He took a seat at Haruka's dining room table.

"I'll make us some tea," Haruka already had some water in the pot. He pulled out some tea from one of his cabinets.

He mixed them into two cups and brought them over to his dining room table. He sat down with Rin.

They sat in silence for a little bit while Rin looked over Haruka. Haruka had an incredible body. Rin had always had weird feelings about his next door neighbor, but nothing like this. Haruka had obviously continued swimming. They had done that as kids, but for some reason, one day Rin had stopped. He refused to go into a pool after that day. That must have been why he and Haruka had grown apart.

"Well, I guess I should talk about why I came over…" Rin started.

Haruka's head moved so slightly it didn't even seem like a nod.

Rin sighed, "Sorry, for dropping by without even asking. I just, I didn't know how to ask about this over facebook or something. I wanted to see you face to face. I wanted to talk about it face to face."

Haruka only "Mmm"ed. He couldn't imagine why the redhead had decided to drop in on his life, but he had no reason to turn down Rin.

"Last night, I got really stoned."

Haruka raised his brows, but didn't comment. Rin had never done any of that sort of stuff in high school, so it came as a slight surprise to Haruka, but college did change people.

"I was talking with my friends. They brought up cemeteries. Anyway, I ended up telling them about the time we found treasure in the cemetery. Do you remember that?" Rin asked.

Haruka bit his lip. He bit hard enough to draw blood. He didn't know how to answer Rin about this. He didn't know how to talk to Rin about this at all.

"I guess not, well. It was worth asking. I just, I don't remember it very well. As I was telling the story, I started to feel sick. I don't think I've ever told anyone about it. I don't remember it very well at all," Rin was mumbling, but he started to stand up and leave, "Thanks for the tea I guess. Really sorry that I bothered you."

He pushed the chair back, but Haruka stopped him, "W-wait."

Rin sat back down.

"It's...complicated Rin. It's not easy for me to talk about what happened that day, because I...I failed you."

Rin furrowed his brow.

"First, we never found treasure. That's something you started saying later on. I don't know why," then Haruka added softly, "probably to cope with whatever actually happened."

Rin's eyes widened. _But, there was a box. It was full of stuff._

Haruka sighed, "How much of it do you remember?"

"I remember it was just you and me...I remember we were playing together, we were like seven or something. Gou was somewhere else. I think she was at some other friend's house. I don't remember. I don't know why she wasn't with us."

"Yeah, that's all pretty much right, Gou was nearby though." Haruka answered, "Do you remember the pool my house had?"

Calling it a pool was probably an exaggeration. It wasn't a kiddy pool, but it sure as hell wasn't an olympic pool either. It was an above ground small pool, Haruka's parents had installed it one year and the three of them used to swim in it all the time ever after.

Rin nodded.

"The three of us were swimming that day. You dragged me out to go to the cemetery because you wanted to go exploring. In those days, I went everywhere and anywhere you told me to go," Haruka closed his eyes. He wished he had put up a fight. Any other day it would have been fine, but why didn't he put up a fight that day? "You tried to convince Gou, but she wouldn't come with us. She thought it was too hot and wanted to stay in the pool."

Rin didn't remember that much of the story. He didn't remember that they had gone swimming that day, but that would have meant that they were just wearing their swimsuits as usual when they went, "Okay, so it was just the two of us. We entered the cemetery from the steps behind your house. It was one of the days they were cutting the yard."

"That's right," Haruka sipped on the tea.

"They...they talked to us."

"Not exactly," Haruka answered, "they looked at us, but they listened to you talking to me, you talked to me about how you wanted to go to our favorite places in the cemetery and to find treasure."

"And then, the guy cutting the grass came over," Rin's throat suddenly became very dry.

Haruka nodded slowly.

"You...you told me not to talk to him."

Haruka ran his teeth over his lip.

"I didn't listen to you though. You told me we shouldn't talk to strangers, but I did. I talked to him. I asked him if he knew where we could find treasure."

Haruka nodded slowly.

"He told his friend - coworker something...and then, he took me with him. I told you to wait a second, that I would go with him and come back..." as each of the words fell from Rin's lips his chest tightened. Why was it so hard for him to remember what happened?

Haruka nodded, "That's right. I...I stayed behind. It took awhile, and I heard weird noises. I tried to go over and join you, Rin, but they wouldn't let me. They wouldn't let me go home either, I was older and I...I couldn't protect you, Rin. I'm sorry, oh god, I'm so, so sorry."

Rin started to tell Haruka that it wasn't his fault, but he felt his stomach turn, "I...I'm going to throw up."

"Bathroom is down the hall, I'll take you," Haruka moved quickly and guided Rin to the toilet.

Rin threw up, and Haruka debated about what to do. He eventually decided to reach over and stroke Rin's back. It seemed only natural.

"You...okay?"

Rin flushed the toilet and faced Haruka, "A bit better. Have any mouthwash?"

Haruka poured him a small cup, and Rin rinsed out the throwup.

They returned to Haruka's kitchen, but Haruka suggested they sit on the couch.

Rin nodded. His mind was blank. He couldn't believe this. This was what had happened? Why had he forgotten all about this?

"Anyway, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. I...I really tried. They wouldn't take me though, Rin. I asked for them to give you back and take me instead, but they wouldn't."

"W-what?"

"They wanted someone who would fight, they said. They wanted someone who they could break. They...they loved the fact that you were all outspoken and talkative. I...I never wanted that to happen to you though Rin, I wish I had been me, God, I'm so sorry, and then, after that, I thought you hated me, because it was all my fault."

"S-stop," Rin put his finger against Haruka's lips. They were really soft. Haruka was so gentle, Haruka had always been so gentle, "After that, I came back." 

Haruka nodded.

"And I told you I'd found treasure? And we had to go get Gou?" Rin asked.

Haruka nodded.

"So we went back to the pool, and I took you both over to that place where...where he'd taken me and I was sure we'd find the box, but it wasn't there," Rin was suddenly able to remember a lot more of it.

Haruka continued to nod, "Like I said, there was no treasure, Rin."

"They were gone when we came back, weren't they?"

Haruka nodded, "I wanted to tell an adult. Gou didn't really know what was going on."

"I wouldn't let you though. I told you to never tell anyone," Rin could remember better now, "I told you I'd hate you forever if you told anyone."

Haruka nodded again, that seemed to be all he was able to do throughout all of this.

"That's why I never went swimming again."

Haruka looked away.

"And you, you spent all your time in a pool ever after."

"I wish we had never left it that day. I thought only bad things would happen if I did. It was the last time I ever went in the cemetery too. You were okay with it. I think the treasure story worked for you. I don't know why you suddenly remembered it, Rin, I'm sorry you did."

It was Rin's turn to be silent.

"Rin, I'm really sorry I couldn't protect you that day."

Rin shrugged, then, something else in his brain seemed to click, "Haruka...why are you going to law school?" He'd never seemed like someone interested in law.

"I can't identify them Rin. I can't put them in jail, but I...I want to make sure anyone else like that gets put away forever. I don't want anyone to go through what you went through...I don't want anyone to ever be as powerless as I was."

"It's not your fault," Rin reassured him, "What happened wasn't your fault."

"It was. That's why we stopped talking, because you...you got hurt because of me."

"Haruka...it's okay, come here," and Rin took him into an embrace, "Thank you. Thank you so much for everything. Haruka, you've spent your whole life trying to help me and I...I pushed you away. I'm so sorry."

"I love you, I've always loved you. But, it was my fault...so I realized I wasn't allowed to have you."

Rin shook his head, "Come here."

And Rin pushed his lips against Haruka's, "It doesn't matter what happened. I don't even know why I went looking for something stupid like treasure, the most important and kind person was always right in front of me."


End file.
